But how about the young adults who have come on our courses or received mentoring – what difference has made Edventure to them? We commissioned Lauren Goodey to follow up with students from the past year, and interview them. We were particularly interested to hear if and how we support students to step towards a livelihood that matters to them – which is our aim. Here are some of her findings:

%

said Edventure helped them to step towards a livelihood that matters to them. 16.7% said they were not sure. 5.5% said Edventure did not help.

%

were in employment, self-employment or in the process of starting up 3 month+ after the course

Help us do more of our work please!

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We were of course also interested in what we do that helps students to step towards a livelihood that matters to them. Here some soundbites of what students said:

“Inspiration and support to create a meaningful livelihood”,

“Using Edventure as evidence of work experience” “support from the Edventure staff, opportunities”

“Confidence in what is possible to do in three weeks”

“Reflections on creating ethical business”

“using the Edventure hub space”

“Learning about starting-up”

“encouragement to take on leadership”

“learning how to work with others”

“A sense of moving forward”

“feeling accepted and welcome, making great friends, self reflection”

“Introduction to community in Frome”

“meeting new people including people running local businesses”

“learning innovation and coming up with ideas”

“marketing and branding, experience in leadership”

“Financially accessible, life changing, exploring life purpose”

And finally some numbers to quantify this: Between Sep 2017 and Aug 2018, we supported 76 young adults through our main courses and 1-to-1 support. With our student teams we created the Frome Remakery and set up Edspace Living Ltd. In addition, we have run 10 short courses for 160 adults, and had a total of 8223 users of our initiatives, including 1049 attendees of our community events.